All posts in category LSU

The Auburn road all-whites are just about as good as their home blues. Overall, just a stellar look. Photo by Getty Images

Things are getting very tense right now with the National Championship just on the horizon, so here is my best attempt at finishing this in a somewhat timely manner. Now going to the best conference in the nation on the field, at least.

The Tigers are one of the few teams in college football to wear white at home, along with Georgia Tech. The stripes along the shoulders are the best part of this uniform. The helmet could use some work and creativity.

The Gamecocks have a cool combination of maroon and white, but it is very difficult to tell what is going on in a complicated logo when it is so small on the helmet. There’s a lot more going on there than with Arkansas.

Here we have another entry from Alex. This one regarding the emergence of white helmets in football.

Auburn has employed the white helmet for a long time. Always looking good at home and on the road.

But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants, and you’ll like it?”

– From “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway

Indeed, there was a time, particularly in pro football, when white helmets were considered a white elephant, or rather, a fashion faux pas. When the Houston Texans were born in 2002 and they introduced white helmets, many alleged “experts” bristled at such a uniform statement. Arguably, an expansion team should have made a better impression on the league with a better helmet idea, or could have actually made the playoffs once in their first nine seasons. With neither feat accomplished, perhaps the Texans were on to something with their white helmets. Today, the trend toward the white helmet, in the NFL and even more so in college, is quite prevalent.

Barry Sanders sported a white helmet with Oklahoma State in the late 80s. The letters on the helmets were bigger, but the helmet has largely remained the same.

Like the Cowboys, many schools have had white helmets as far back as anyone can remember, making the white helmet not a burden to an team’s look, but rather an enhancement. Penn State and Stanford have never deviated from their white lids (although Standard will feature a black helmet on November 27th, when they Pro Combat for a primetime game against Notre Dame). Many other schools have also gone to the white helmet in recent years, with even Oregon finding room in their cornucopia of unis for a classic, white topper.

But this trend is not only limited to the college game. In addition to the Texans, the Jets, Cardinals, Dolphins, Colts, and Titans (formerly the Oilers) all sport white helmets. Additionally, both the Bills and Chargers have made the move from their old helmets to white helmets.

Clearly, the white helmet is (and has) made a comeback. And, rather than being like white elephants, are embraced by teams looking to return to a more classic, and overall better look.

The Mountain West's uniform restrictions for Boise State finally took effect Saturday against Air Force. Photo by Getty Images

The offseason was filled with scandal in all of college football. From Ohio State to Miami to Oregon to even Boise State there were scandals and sanctions galore.

One of the sanctions to Boise State that went unnoticed was the Mountain West immediately putting some restrictions on their newest member by telling Boise it could no longer wear its blue jerseys for conference home games. The trademark blue turf in Boise, Idaho, made for a camouflage look for the Broncos.

Boise finally ran into this problem on Saturday when they hosted Air Force.

Boise has been changing their uniforms a bit over the past few seasons as it has become a consistent national title contender. They’ve gone with all-white at the start of the season against Georgia and used a new helmet for their bowl game against Utah last season.

Yesterday’s look was similar to what they wore to defeat Virginia Tech in the season opener last year. The only difference is the helmet Boise wore yesterday is similar to the helmet they usually go with.

Personally, I was hoping Boise would decide to go with its orange look it employed for a game last season. It would certainly accomplish what the Mountain West was looking for in that they would stand out from the blue field.

At the very least, this adds a bit more intrigue to the uniform selection for the Broncos every week. They might be falling a bit in the BCS standings, but the uniforms should keep us on our toes.

With that, we’ll move on to our quick hits:

A host of LSU defenders dominated Auburn all game in these alternate uniforms. Photo by Getty Images

Top-ranked LSU turned some heads with its uniform selection in a blowout of defending champs Auburn. The white helmets and white pants are the primary departures from the normal yellow here. There is also gold weaved into the stripes on the shoulders and the helmets. Overall, the look is fine, nothing too jarring and not that far from the norm.

Virginia Tech went with an orange throwback look against Boston College. The Hokies have started to mix in some surprises in the uniform department recently. For the most part, they work.

Both Oregon and Oklahoma State went with all-white in road victories yesterday. Sometimes it’s nice to see a simple look from these teams.

Rutgers went away from being Scarlet again on Friday night. They chose black helmets, white jerseys and black pants in a loss to Louisville. The only difference between this and the look they wore at home against Pitt was a white R on the helmet instead of the red seen against Pitt. Maybe Rutgers didn’t feel as fierce with the white R and that’s why they lost.